For over two decades, Matt has been a globally-recognized authority on animal advocacy, factory farming, vegetarian diets, and applied ethics. Matt is President and Co-founder of One Step for Animals. Previously, he was Senior Adviser for VegFund, after co-founding Vegan Outreach in 1993.

Matt has presented at and written for diverse forums over the past two decades, from Future Farmers of America to plenaries at national animal rights conferences. He is the author of dozens of essays, articles, editorials, and book chapters. With Bruce Friedrich, he wrote The Animal Activist’s Handbook (2007), about which Peter Singer wrote “The Animal Activist's Handbook punches way above its weight. Rarely have so few pages contained so much intelligence and good advice. Get it, read it, and act o﻿n it. Now.” In 2014, he published The Accidental Activist, for which Dr. Michael Greger wrote, “Over the past two decades, Matt Ball has had a singularly profound influence on the animal protection movement in the United States. Matt's reasoned, eloquent focus on having the biggest possible impact with the greatest possible efficiency has resonated with tens of thousands of individuals, and created fundamental, pragmatic change on every level of the movement.” In 2005, he was inducted into the Animal Rights Hall of Fame. See also this 2015 article, Matt Ball: Changing the world by example, advocacy, this Vox interview, and this CBC interview.

Before working full-time for the animals, Matt was a Research Fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Pittsburgh while working on a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to that, Matt was a Department of Energy Global Change Fellow, during which time he earned an M.S. in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as an M.S. in the Department of Forest Ecology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He lives in Tucson, AZ with his wife Anne Green, Director of Operations for Our Hen House. Their offspring Ellen – a lifelong vegan, nationally-recognized scholar, and athlete – graduated from Pomona College in 2016 with a degree in Molecular Biology with an emphasis on Public Policy.